


Five Steps from Hope

by theoreticallychaotic



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Chronic Illness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, More Tags As and When
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoreticallychaotic/pseuds/theoreticallychaotic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert goes through the five stages of grief as he comes to terms with a chronic illness.</p><p>Gift Fic for Chrissy24601.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Steps from Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chrissy24601](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrissy24601/gifts).



> What follows will be a short series of long drabbles/ficlets as Javert tries to adapt to living with Fibromyalgia, the effects of which are seen through the five stages of the grief cycle.
> 
> I've drawn on my own experiences of the illness for this after being diagnosed just over two years ago. In a nutshell - and for those who may not have heard of it - Fibromyalgia is a neurological-based condition that is similar to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in its manifestation, but with a heck of a lot more pain, and currently the cause is unknown and there is no cure. Take the worst bout of flu you've ever suffered, the worst jet-lag/exhaustion you've ever experienced and imagine what it would be like to be hit by a high-speed train and imagine feeling all of that at the same time, and then imagine feeling like that all day, every day and you get a very vague idea of what the Hell that this illness is, can be like. The symptoms are so varied it's impossible to do justice to giving a full and accurate sense of this illness and its impact on one's life in what I have written. Please bear in mind this is fiction and I'm writing partly for pleasure and partly to purge some demons. It is not meant to trivialise. 
> 
> The five stages of grief are based on the concept highlighted by Kubler-Ross, with the five stages being: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. 
> 
> This is currently a (very slow) work-in-progress, but I'm hoping that sticking it up here will have me focus on updating it quicker.

**Denial**

The sharp scent of hot coffee beans twirled upwards, stinging Javert’s nostrils and violently roiling his stomach. He had made progress, though, hauling himself from the bed that he had been hostage to for near three weeks with leaden limbs and his spine seemingly a touch-paper for one of Hell’s hottest fires. With all the pace of a chain-gang lugging at a creaky Tall-Ship, an old man wallowing in the salted, stormy brine, Javert had at last manage to reacquaint himself with his uniform; it grated far more than he remembered, shaving near brutally against his fevered skin. 

Yes, the coffee held all the appeal of a cold case rearing its nasty head once again; he didn’t want to touch it. But no matter; he’d succeeded in absconding his bed – the solitary, narrow bed at the back of the house that Jean had confined him to for proper rest and which only ever favoured the company of one person. He had assumed his guise of a Police Inspector, once the only skin he ever felt rightfully comfortable in, and was now determined to commit the petty act of forcing breakfast upon his strongly resisting body. 

The chunky ceramic mug, emblazoned with the words ‘Mornings Are For Other People’ – Jean’s idea of a joke – was half-way to his mouth, wrist throbbing sorely in protest at the effort, when a voice startled him. He jerked enough to splatter the table with several splodges of liquid. 

“Javert?!” Jean’s bewilderment at seeing his partner, grey-faced and wheezing, slouched over the kitchen table was betrayed in his voice. “What on earth are you doing? And in your uniform too?” 

“I’m going to work, Jean.” Javert, trying to firm his breathy, weakened voice, dabbed a square of kitchen towel over the spilt drink. 

“You’re in no fit state!” Jean dragged a chair from the table, the whine of the feet scraping the flagstones piercing to Javert’s ears. “Be sensible, Mon Coeur. You’ll only succeed in making yourself more ill than you are now.” 

Javert was only vaguely aware of Jean’s lengthy litany of why Javert wasn’t fit to be anywhere other than that wretched bed as a sharp pain sunk its fangs into the left side of his chest and proceeded to coil around him.

“I’m better than I was.” Javert stated, his voice snagging on a wince.

Jean sat back and watched, unconvinced, as Javert bowed his head, cupped his hands to the ladder of his ribs and hunched further over the table. “Pain?” Jean asked.

Javert gave a curt nod; “It’ll pass.” 

His head remained hung and his hands pressed tight, his knuckles paling with each constricting breath. He felt two patches of heat, one on either side of his chest; Jean’s hands gently resting there, gently soothing, gently comforting to the tune of the rhythmic tick of the clock and Javert’s stumbling intakes of breath.

“Try not to breathe too deep.”

He could feel Jean’s breath trembling his wiry hair and patting his hot neck whilst he remained bent double and immovable as a boulder, letting the snake have its fill before he sensed it steadily loosen and slither to its retreat. The pressure against his ribs eased and he relished the greater amount of air filling to nourish his lungs once again. 

“Better?”

“Yes…thank you.” Javert straightened his aching back, brows still threaded together with pain. Even so, that wasn’t a strong enough deterrent for Javert: “This won’t stop me going to work, Jean.”


End file.
